Saudi Arabia 'Surprised and dismayed' at criticism

Saudi Arabia has rejected strong criticism from worldwide media over the treatment of a liberal blogger sentenced to 1,000 lashes and ten years in prison for 'insulting Islam' in his blog. Read the story at The Independent.

A Translation of the Saudi Statement regarding Raif Badawi

07 March 2015- Saudi News Agency

An official source at the Saudi Foreign Ministry made this statement:

"Saudi Arabia expresses its strong surprise and dismay of what is being said in some of the media on the issue of citizen/Raif Mohammed Badawi and the verdict against him. And while the Kingdom regrets these media outlets’ attacks against the Kingdom and its Judiciary, it emphasizes at the same time that it does not accept any form of interference in its internal affairs, and rejects the encroachment on its sovereign right or the compromising of its judiciary independence and integrity, where there is no power over the judges in their rulings. The Kingdom also stresses that all court cases are handled without distinction or exception. The source also added that the Kingdom does not accept at all any attack on her in the name of human rights, especially when its constitution is based on Islamic law, which guarantees the rights of human and preserved his blood, money, honour and dignity.

Saudi Arabia was one of the first countries that supported human rights and respected all international conventions in accordance with the Islamic Sharia. However, and in spite of these obvious visible efforts, some international agencies and some media unfortunately emptied human rights from its high implications, and drifted into the attempt to politicize and exploit them in the infringement and attack on the sovereign rights of States according to standards that can only be described as selective and duplicated to serve political goals; and this is something that the Kingdom does not permit nor accept at all."